


prowl

by soundofez



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: (Black Star), (Kilik Lung), (Maka Albarn), F/M, Feast AU, actual cat blair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 14:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7225627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soundofez/pseuds/soundofez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cat takes what she can get. If what she can get is tallcat food off the pavement, then she will take tallcat food off the pavement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	prowl

A fried anchovy sits abandoned on the pavement. Cat creeps warily out of the shadows to sniff and lap at the strong-smelling fish. The taste of it is so fascinating that she completely forgets to hide from the pawsteps until those huge tallcat claws dip into her vision.

She jumps and arches her back and hisses, but the tallcat makes a soothing cluck and apologetic mew and holds out something from between its claws.

Cat considers the tallcat’s whiskerless-face warily, confused by the tallcat’s white fur, and also by the tallcat’s apparent understanding of language.*

It clucks again, waggling its offering, and then it turns its head away, calling to other tallcats, and Cat takes the moment to pounce.

“Ow,” Soul Evans says mildly.

“Dude, what are you doing,” Black☆Star yells at him from halfway down the block.

“Go on ahead, I’ll catch up,” Soul yells back, and then turns back to the skinny, black cat that has sunk her claws into his hand and her teeth into the fried anchovy protruding from his fingers.

“That hurts,” Soul tells the cat, which hisses and backs away with the fish and some of his skin. “No, wait, here,” Soul adds, grabbing another handful of anchovies from his bag and letting them fall from his hand to the pavement.

The cat sniffs at the fish scattered before it, and then begins nibbling at Soul’s gift. He puts his hand in front of her, makes sure she notices him, moves the hand closer to her head, waits patiently for her to stop hissing, and repeats, until she’s decided that he’s a nonthreat and lets him pet her.

“What do you think of the name ‘Blair’?” Soul asks her. She ignores him and continues eating anchovies.

* * *

(*No other tallcat that Blair had ever met was as coherent as Soul.)

* * *

Blair sees the white-furred tallcat several more times, and even begins following him while he’s in her territory. Soul, for his part, continues to feed Blair whenever he passes by (more and more frequently, since his girlfriend lives in the area).

The first time Maka Albarn meets Blair, a black shadow twisting around Soul’s ankles, she coos over the cat, though she makes no attempt to pet the stray, which seems to prefer prowling amongst the Halloween decorations Maka has just put up in anticipation of the holiday.

When Soul disappears, Blair doesn’t really notice. It takes a chance stroll past the Pumpkin House for her to notice that she hasn’t had tallcat food in a while.

Perhaps he’s inside? Blair meows plaintively at the door.

Nobody answers, but Blair is patient. Tallcats are quite deaf, after all.

Maka finds her there when she returns home late that evening. “Hi, there,” she tells the cat, which jumps onto the railing and sits there, watching her. “Come to stay?”

Blair slips in the house when Maka opens the door.

“Seriously?” Maka grumbles, following the little creature into her own house. As she’s about to shut her door, though, Blair comes streaking back through the house and rockets out the door.

“ _What the heck just happened._ ”

* * *

Blair doesn’t usually do this, but she’s getting desperate, so when she catches a whiff of Food-Giver Tallcat on an unfamiliar tallcat, she follows it. She may not be a barkcat, but she can do that much.

Sure enough, the tallcat takes her to a house that smells very strongly of Food-Giver Tallcat.

“Yo, Soul,” Kilik calls, knocking on the door. “I brought groceries, and I think your cat is following me.”

The door cracks open. Soul peers out irately. “Ha, ha, very funny,” he tells Kilik shortly, just before his eyes land on Blair, who is trying to squeeze through the crack he’s left. “Oh, hi, you.”

Blair purrs and wraps herself around his legs.

“She likes you a lot,” Kilik observes. He’s only talking about the cat, but Soul flinches.

“I guess,” he mutters, and then sticks out his arm. “Thanks. For… yeah.”

“No problem,” Kilik says simply, handing over the bags of groceries. “See you around? Guys’ night tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” Soul grunts, trying to extract himself from Blair without stepping on her.

Kilik leaves with a sigh, and gets halfway down the block before Soul shouts his name. He turns immediately, hopeful that maybe his friend is finally climbing out of the hole he’d dug himself into since he and Maka had their Fight.

“Catch her!” Soul yells.

“What?” Kilik stumbles a bit when something brushes past his ankle. When he looks down, Blair is already gone, a fuzzy shadow streaking down the street.

“She stole my wallet!” Soul huffs as he races past.

Kilik bursts into laughter and follows, but when he squints, he notices that, yes, the cat does seem to have something dangling from her mouth.

The tallcats chase Blair well into her own territory. Food-Giver Tallcat is louder than he’s ever been, but Blair has a plan, sort of: she follows the scent of Pumpkin Tallcat, the one that Food-Giver Tallcat would come to Blair’s territory to visit.

Blair is nearly stopped right before she reaches the Pumpkin House, but Food-Giver Tallcat lets go of her tail at her muffled yowl, and has to pick himself off the ground because he’d thrown himself at her. Pumpkin Girl isn’t there, though: Blair can smell her passing through recently, so she follows that instead.

Soul notices the direction Blair is going, of course, and he’s relieved when the cat passes Maka’s house. The cat acts like she’s toying with him and Kilik, though, never running out of sight, sometimes dropping the wallet to sniff around, but always picking it back up when they get too close and scampering away again.

Soul might have given up if Kilik had wanted to, but they keep pace with each other mostly in silence,* until at last they make it to a market street lined with shops and cafés. It’s more crowded, and Soul turns a fair number of heads with his desperate cry for help: “Cat! Catch it! Stole my wallet!”

Blair dodges reaching hands, and all Soul really manages to achieve is attention that he doesn’t really want.

And then the cat vaults onto a café waitress’s back. The waitress yelps and tries to round on the cat, who simply leaps to her head and clings there until the waitress has managed to drop even the platter she’d been carrying drinks with.**

“I’m so sorry,” Soul pants, flinging himself to a halt in front of the waitress and doubling over trying to catch his breath. Kilik, noticing exactly who the waitress is, makes himself scarce.

“Wh— Soul?”

Soul looks up sharply. “Maka! Sorry! I’m— I’ll go,” he stutters, straightening and stumbling backward.

“W-wait!” Maka catches his arm as Blair leaps to the ground behind her and waits patiently. Soul’s wallet still dangles from her mouth.

Soul won’t meet Maka’s gaze, so she leans up on her tiptoes and pecks his cheek.

He jumps and looks down at her. She closes her eyes, tilts her head up to him, and waits.

Soul’s eyebrows have disappeared into his hairline. Blushing, he leans down and kisses her shyly.

The café bursts into applause. Startled, Blair hisses, drops Soul’s wallet, and makes her escape. Soul jerks backwards, face flaming. Maka is also blushing, but she mouths _Text me_ before she turns to the patrons that she’d spilled drinks all over less than a minute ago and apologizing profusely. Soul ducks his head and spots his wallet, which he snatches up hastily before making his retreat.

“All good?” Kilik asks casually, rematerializing a block away.

“Sh-shut up,” Soul mumbles. He’s still in boxers and a tank top, and gross with sweat from chasing Blair.

The cat takes that moment to trot up to him, purring loudly.

“I fed you,” Soul complains.

“She also just got you and Maka back together, so you can’t complain, really,” Kilik observes.

“ _I told you to shut up._ ”

* * *

(*Soul was reasonably certain that the only reason why he was keeping pace with Kilik was that the latter was too busy laughing between gasps of air to outrun Soul and actually catch Blair. Soul might have been laughing, too, if the cat wasn’t stealing _his wallet_.)

(**The café customers that had been doused in drinks were upset at Maka until they realized that she was being attacked by a cat. At that point they were astonished into laughter and in fact left her extra tip for how apologetic she was.)


End file.
